[3.P] We know core is broken, but what breaks it, when, and how?

[Otodetu]

Most issues can be fixed by adding enough splat books... really.

3.5 is broken indeed, but the tier list helps ALOT, if you have equal tier characters in the party things becomes sweet.

[Runestar]

Action economy disparity between casters and fighters. In other words, melee is too reliant on the full-attack action for the bulk of their damage, which casters get to do the same amount, if not more as a standard action.

At higher lvs, a wizard can move, cast a spell that easily deals 100+ damage and still fire off another quickened spell.

Conversely, if a fighter moves, he is entitled to just 1 melee attack at what...a paltry 2d6+20 damage? They also lack viable swift action abilities in core.

[dsmiles]

3.5 D&D is focused incredibly heavily on combat. 99% of the mechanics in the game have to deal with combat, and using the system as-is, there is no way to make a character that isn't composed primarily of statistics dealing with combat.

That premise is fine. A game focused on combat is fine. Even the premise of a roleplaying game focused on combat is fine.

The problem is that D&D combat is boring, painfully slow, and for half the classes in the core game, very tedious.

So, D&D is broken because the primary thing that it focuses on doing well, it does badly.

Well played, but that's not the only reason it's broken, just the primary reason it's broken. I'm glad I play with sensible people who won't break the game.

[Thrantar]

Metamagic Rods - Cost reducers in core. Starting from just 3k. Need range, silence, or duration?

[The Big Dice]

-the social contract thing. i'm all for playing nice with your buddies, but while you chose to play the wizard, you buddy chose to play the fighter. if your concept is that of a warmage, a veteran of combat who marches onto the field not in armor, but wearing the skin of a monster, transforming himself into a beastial war machine as he wades into combat armed with the flight and talons of a Roc, the mouth and furnace-like stomach of a Remorhaz, the brutal and destructive strenght of a Treant, etc...

why are you in the wrong when the fighter complains that your flying, invisble giant millipede is devouring enemies left & right?

why is the cleric of Kord in the wrong when he wades into combat fully buffed as a giant avatar of destruction, preaching the teachings of his god as he strikes down his foes, reveling in the ecstasy of the adrenaline rush? why should you tone down your concept for the fighter?

what of the cleric of olidamara hoping to strike it rich in the next lost city? or the tomb-raiding and treasure-hunting wizard who both dream of excavating lost heirlooms of a bygone era and have chosen their spell list to help them navigate subterranean areas & bypass traps? should they tone it down so the rogue can go into harm's way and try to pick the locks and check for traps himself?

i agree that that there should be some give & take within a group, but telling those who are playing the casters to willingly hold back so the fighter can pretend he's needed is just as insulting to the casters as they are being to the fighter by doing his job and more.

I guess the concept of Thou Shalt Not Steal Another Player's Thunder isn't one that people go for these days. If your idea is going to step on the toes of someone else in the group's idea, your idea needs to be modified to find it's own niche instead of trying to occupy the niche that has an entire class dedicated to it.

If you're going to out do another player, very likely friend at that, in the area they want their character to specialise in, what does that say about you?

Also the idea of a caster as usually being a somewhat academic class seems to have gone out the window in favour of driving your enemies before them and hearing the lamentation of the women.

[arrowhen]

I think what makes 3.x so breakable is that the designers *expected* players to play it just like AD&D. A lot of problems go away when you limit yourself to blasty wizards, heal-y clerics, and direct-damage fighters.

[Tyndmyr]

Core is not broken.

Mostly just many of the rules interpretations out there are.

And some broken RAW loopholes exist in theory, but could normally never happen in practice (e.g. Gate/inifinite wishes), simply because they would require massive metagaming and/or be prevented by npc behaviour.

- Giacomo

Wishing for more wishes is an obvious strategy. So much so that even small children can think of it, and movies and such ban it(ie, Aladdin, etc).

So, if you have the knowledge check to know of a Genie, and that they grant wishes, and have a candle of invocation, and know what it does, the rest is pretty easy to put together. No metagaming is required, and NPC behavior is set by gate.

[TheGeckoKing]

It breaks because either people break it on purpose, or accidently because the DM isn't watching their players properly. If DM's would be more wary and inflict Epic Book Damage on Munchkins, the problems would be reduced by a fair bit. Core isn't perfect, and what I say won't fix it, but it'll fix more glaring errors.

[BeholderSlayer]

Core is not broken.

Mostly just many of the rules interpretations out there are.

And some broken RAW loopholes exist in theory, but could normally never happen in practice (e.g. Gate/inifinite wishes), simply because they would require massive metagaming and/or be prevented by npc behaviour.

- Giacomo

I'm going to assume that by "not broken" you mean "the single most broken portion of the entire 3.5 ruleset."

[Psyren]

By "broken" I mean that if you run a game from levels 1 to 20 using only the core rules, you'll encounter such a balance disparity that someone needs to fudge their abilities just so eveyrone can contribute. In short, classes and abilities are nowhere close to being balanced over 20 levels, since what non-magical abilities can compete with level 6+ spells?

Some believe the very inclusion of magic breaks the game. Others say the game is fine or mostly fine until level X (usually between 6 and 12).

What are your thoughts on this?

Basically, your challenges advance quadratically (monsters gain increased health/damage, but ALSO gain magic, magic-esque abilities, or special qualities like flight/incorporeality, not to mention non-combat challenges like diplomacy or detective-work.) In core, casters are able to keep up because they also advance quadratically for the same reasons. But the mundane classes in core do not.

The mundane classes in core can approximate these abilities via their WBL... but while they are gaining the necessary abilities to keep up with casters through coin, the casters are gaining those abilities as class features AND gaining the same amount of coin. The mundanes cannot catch up.

The end result - your DM either has to scale down encounters to keep the weak-tier classes "in the game"; keep them scaled normally and risk the casters hogging the limelight; or balance the casters by denying them some of their more egregious abilities. Or keep the party from mixing drastically different tiers altogether.

[Saph]

The general rule of thumb I use is:

Levels 1-4: Melee dominates over casters.
Levels 5-10: Melee and casters are roughly balanced.
Levels 11-14: Casters dominate over melee.
Levels 15-20: Casters dominate over everything.
Levels 21+: Divide by Cucumber Error. Please reinstall universe and reboot.

You can run a Level 1-10 core game without much trouble and only minimal adjustment - okay, you'll have to deal with the blatant stuff like Candle of Invocation, but that's not exactly difficult. At low levels full casters (except druids) are fairly weak, but the melee characters can take up the slack. By levels 9-10 the balance is starting to tip the other way, but the power disparity isn't enough to wreck the game.

The exact point at which the problems do start to wreck the game is arguable. Some people put it as early as level 7 (which I think is way too low) and some put it as high as 17 (which I think is way too high). I'd personally say somewhere between levels 11-13. By this point it's just too difficult for meleers to contribute, and the casters have enough spells that they can fire off high-level magic in every encounter without running out.

Epic isn't even worth talking about. 3.5's balance is already creaking and groaning under the strain by levels 17+. Once you get Epic Spellcasting there's no point even trying to balance the game anymore.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Action Economy.

This is really at the heart of what makes 3.x break down everywhere - but Core in particular. Certain classes and abilities allow some individuals to count as 2 or more "characters" within the framework of the rules. This results in odd interactions with the rules that govern combat encounters generally and as a result disrupt the core of the system.

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As a thought experiment, let's consider "Fighter" as the default character that the designers were working with when creating the game. He has a Standard and a Move action; he can make 1 "good" attack at low levels and 2-3 at higher levels if he doesn't move; he only can deal with one opponent at a time; it takes him more than one round to dispatch a "challenging" enemy.

Using the "Fighter" as a standard, the designers then try to build monsters to challenge him, and construct the combat rules to work for "Fighters." However, in practice every caster class counts for at least 2 Fighters on an increasingly consistent basis; druids, for example, count as 2 Fighters starting at Level 1 thanks to their animal companion. These classes can make take on multiple opponents at a time, dispatch hard opponents in less than a round, and otherwise act as parties unto themselves.

To compensate, DMs throw out the CR guidelines and start using tougher enemies or enemies that act like the "multiple Fighter" PCs (i.e. Casters); but these enemies are constructed not to minimize actions (for the designers did not contemplate the issue) but to hit Fighters harder. This will certainly challenge "multiple Fighter" classes by eliminating their notional Fighters, but any class that only counts as a single Fighter is suddenly facing a challenge far above his ability to survive. Worse, enemies that mimic Casters now produce the same Action Economy issues as the PC Casters did - but this time aimed at the PCs that are merely a single notional Fighter.

Unfortunately, the Action Economy issues are endemic to the system as a whole so there's no quick fix for them. In order to fix it you'd have to get rid of any feature that allows a character of a particular class-level to consistently break the base Standard-Move paradigm. These include:

- Summoning Magic (grants +1 Standard-Move)
- Companions (e.g. Leadership Cohorts, Animal Companions, etc.)

but more broadly include anything that allows an individual character to reasonably eliminate one or more undamaged "challenging" opponents with a Standard Action.

EDIT: I'll largely agree with Saph although I find the wheels started coming off more in the 5-8 range.

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3rd Level spells are really good, and it is around this point that melee really begins to feel the hurt of the Action Economy. In particular, Summoning Casters now have enough Spell Slots that they can afford to extend good Summon I choices for an entire Encounter and the Summon II and III selections are sufficiently good that they "count" for about 2 Fighters on their own.

Plus, at this power level the DM has to start throwing around more Caster-like enemies to check Casters, which can result in melee getting removed from a fight quickly if the Caster-Monsters happen to swing at them.

N.B. this is largely from the experience of myself (an experienced player) watching our completely n00b Cleric replace my Rogue-Fighter in combat with Celestial Bison. I may not have been optimizing hard, but she didn't even have to try - not to mention that our enemies were increasingly immune to Sneak Attack

[Cainen]

I guess the concept of Thou Shalt Not Steal Another Player's Thunder isn't one that people go for these days. If your idea is going to step on the toes of someone else in the group's idea, your idea needs to be modified to find it's own niche instead of trying to occupy the niche that has an entire class dedicated to it.

If you're going to out do another player, very likely friend at that, in the area they want their character to specialise in, what does that say about you?

You're making the assumption that he's doing this JUST to steal someone else's thunder, not to play a concept out. For all you know, he could've made his character first, making the *other* player the one who's trying to do that. Trying and failing, that is.

Also the idea of a caster as usually being a somewhat academic class seems to have gone out the window in favour of driving your enemies before them and hearing the lamentation of the women.

Archetypes do not particularly matter when the class itself supports a different mode of play. This is like complaining about somebody playing a brutish thug with the Rogue class because the class is slanted towards finesse.

[awa]

one problem is that by say 7th or 8th level its incredible easy to "step on another classes toes" poly morph is better than being a fight.

another aspect is by the time you have 4th level spells you have a wide array of nearly unbeatable abilities sure the dm can make sure that every monster has very high spell resistance fly is immune to grapples ect but then the wizard will feel like you are picking on them and they will be justified if the dm has to handpick every monster to be able to fight the wizard and then find ways to make the fighter seem useful then the system is broken and you are just trying to work around the problem.

every time you say that the dm needs to ban something or casters need to voluntarily limit them selves to make the rest of the party think they are their equals then you are admitting the system is broken because you as a player, or a dm, are trying to work around it.

edit
not that i agree with them but some people argue wizards are broken at level 1 due to spells like sleep am color spray

[Sir Giacomo]

Wishing for more wishes is an obvious strategy. So much so that even small children can think of it, and movies and such ban it(ie, Aladdin, etc).

So, if you have the knowledge check to know of a Genie, and that they grant wishes, and have a candle of invocation, and know what it does, the rest is pretty easy to put together. No metagaming is required, and NPC behavior is set by gate.

Those are quite a lot of ifs, in particular when it is nigh impossible by the RAW to find out about one particular ability of a creature with just a knowledge check (the DM decided what you know and what not).

- Giacomo

[Psyren]

Those are quite a lot of ifs, in particular when it is nigh impossible by the RAW to find out about one particular ability of a creature with just a knowledge check (the DM decided what you know and what not).

- Giacomo

I would say knowing that genies grant wishes falls under "common knowledge."
The solution therefore is to keep the players away from one. But needing to restrict certain avenues to power via rule zero does not disprove Core being broken.

[Gametime]

I guess the concept of Thou Shalt Not Steal Another Player's Thunder isn't one that people go for these days. If your idea is going to step on the toes of someone else in the group's idea, your idea needs to be modified to find it's own niche instead of trying to occupy the niche that has an entire class dedicated to it.

I don't think the point is to outdo another player, but to fully realize a character concept. The problem here is systemic; if the fighter isn't a badass, I can't be a badass warpriest without showing up the fighter.

A lot of this will be game-dependent, since "badass" is relative to what you face, and a good DM should be able to accommodate classes of theoretically different power levels. But when single class features start to tread on the fighter's toes without even trying, there's an issue.

Those are quite a lot of ifs, in particular when it is nigh impossible by the RAW to find out about one particular ability of a creature with just a knowledge check (the DM decided what you know and what not).

- Giacomo

The knowledge check is 10 + HD for one piece of information about "special powers or vulnerabilities," +5 for each additional piece of information.

Noble djinn (the kind that give wishes) have 10 HD, so that's a base 20 DC. Assuming that air mastery and darkvision don't count as "special powers" (since they're fairly mundane) and that each spell-like ability is a separate power, they have 11 special powers or vulnerabilities. That's a DC 70 check to absolutely, positively know that noble djinn grant wishes, even if the DM is specifically trying to withhold information. Hard to reach, definitely, but easy to determine the DC.

You'd have to be pretty obviously trying to prevent the character from knowing that noble djinn grant wishes, though, since it's easily their most notable feature and it's what they're known for in modern culture. Whether this sort of blatant metagaming on the DM's part is justified to prevent metagaming on the player's part is something best decided by individual groups.

[Tvtyrant]

For the people who don't care about social contracts, I completely agree! (Cleric, now is the time to ignore the dieing wizard and keep slaughtering those enemies.) After all, its not like D&D was designed as a social game which stresses teamwork. Or one where the DM is allowing your characters to live on a whim or anything, and only his desire to play a game with friends keeps the party alive. Nope, no D&D campaign was ever like that. Honestly.

Seriously though, if the fighter let the monsters through to the wizard to gallivant off, or the cleric decided saving party members was a waste of spell slots, it would cause major complaints. Once the social contract is off the table the wizard with his fifty hit points is dead; tier ones use the argument that the never signed a social contract and it isn't part of the game, but if the rest of the party agreed they would be entirely screwed.

[The Big Dice]

You're making the assumption that he's doing this JUST to steal someone else's thunder, not to play a concept out. For all you know, he could've made his character first, making the *other* player the one who's trying to do that. Trying and failing, that is.

Archetypes do not particularly matter when the class itself supports a different mode of play. This is like complaining about somebody playing a brutish thug with the Rogue class because the class is slanted towards finesse.

All I can say to this is, if you want to play a Rogue, why are you playing a Wizard? Why are you playing a Wizard if you want to play a melee tank?

Is the problem the player or the system?

The answer lies somewhere in between, like it usually does with these kind of things.

The mode of play is being forced by the player, not by the class. But this is a systemic problem with D&D. It's one of the reasons I've come to despise the game. It really did set roleplaying games back by twenty years. Next time i play D&D, it's going to be a heavily house ruled version of BECMI.

I don't think the point is to outdo another player, but to fully realize a character concept. The problem here is systemic; if the fighter isn't a badass, I can't be a badass warpriest without showing up the fighter.

A lot of this will be game-dependent, since "badass" is relative to what you face, and a good DM should be able to accommodate classes of theoretically different power levels. But when single class features start to tread on the fighter's toes without even trying, there's an issue.

Badass is as badass does if you ask me.

That said, a major part of the problem wth D&D is, it doesn't allow the classes that should be badass to be badass. So you end up with the depressingly dull Fighter, the one trick Barbarian, the Paladin that sucks if you're not fighting Evil Outsiders and the Monk who doesn't really know who he is or what he's about.

[Psyren]

That said, a major part of the problem wth D&D is, it doesn't allow the classes that should be badass to be badass. So you end up with the depressingly dull Fighter, the one trick Barbarian, the Paladin that sucks if you're not fighting Evil Outsiders and the Monk who doesn't really know who he is or what he's about.

What's wrong with cracking open Tome of Battle and simply changing the class names? Clearly the system works, you just have to get out of core.

[The Big Dice]

What's wrong with cracking open Tome of Battle and simply changing the class names? Clearly the system works, you just have to get out of core.

If you have to buy a splatbook to make a gme work, you may as well buy a different game. Preferably one that comes in a self contained starter book, rather than having to buy three hefty tomes plus a splat just to be able to play the game.

Seriously, D&D ain't all that.

[Tyndmyr]

Those are quite a lot of ifs, in particular when it is nigh impossible by the RAW to find out about one particular ability of a creature with just a knowledge check (the DM decided what you know and what not).

- Giacomo

It is not nigh-impossible. Knowledge(Planes) is not a ridiculous skill to pick up, especially for wizards, who with int have a nice bonus to them. It's a mere DC 20 to get info off an Efreet.

The fact that Genies grant wishes is a pretty well known piece of folklore. In fact, it probably qualifies for "basic questions" given that, as mentioned before, even very small children can normally know that genies grant wishes. So, DC 15. That's doable without cheese at level 1.

If you have a candle of invocation, and you identify it, you know what it does.

Bam, that's all you need. Your character suddenly has in game knowledge of all the important stuff.


Next broken item from core: Leadership. I eagerly await your explanation of how this is a balanced feat.

[Dusk Eclipse]

What's wrong with cracking open Tome of Battle and simply changing the class names? Clearly the system works, you just have to get out of core.

While normally I would agree, I feel inclined to say that for the purpose of this thread, we are debating Core only.+

:Trying not to sound offensive or condecendent, If I do, I apologixe in advance:

Edit:
[QUOTE]
Next broken item from core: Leadership. I eagerly await your explanation of how this is a balanced feat.[/QOUTE]

Well DUHthe fighter takes it to get a Wizard Cohort, now he too have access to magic

[Psyren]

If you have to buy a splatbook to make a gme work, you may as well buy a different game. Preferably one that comes in a self contained starter book, rather than having to buy three hefty tomes plus a splat just to be able to play the game.

Seriously, D&D ain't all that.

"Play something else" isn't always an option. People usually play what their friends play, and D&D's ubiquity is a powerful point in its favor.

Besides, it's a wash. Sure I have to buy a splatbook to make D&D better (or at least be prepared to houserule heavily), but the core game is free. With another system, I may not have to buy splats, but I do have to buy their core books.

Even better - I can use a free system that doesn't need many splats to work well.

Finally, swapping Fighter for Warblade isn't that hard... isn't the latter (and all its maneuvers) free as well?

[Cainen]

All I can say to this is, if you want to play a Rogue, why are you playing a Wizard? Why are you playing a Wizard if you want to play a melee tank?

Because A) There's support for those kind of characters in-class and even unnecessary prestige classes to further aid those concepts, and B) It's ridiculously foolish to pigeonhole classes into exactly one role with no variance in them. Even AD&D never did that.

I do not sit down and roll up a Wizard to play exactly the Wizard that my friend across the table played last campaign with only name and personality changes. Same goes for any other class. I don't even understand why you'd want me to expect that - that runs counter to every RPG I've seen.

[Mystic Muse]

" isn't the latter (and all its maneuvers) free as well?

Yes. Just not legally.

[Psyren]

Yes. Just not legally.

But they're both on the Wizards' site.

Warblade
Maneuvers

[Mystic Muse]

But they're both on the Wizards' site.

Warblade
Maneuvers

Huh. Never noticed those. I also thought you meant TOB as a whole for some reason.

[Psyren]

Huh. Never noticed those. I also thought you meant TOB as a whole for some reason.

Then you probably missed this too!

The Guide to Free D&D

Everything here is legal

[Amphetryon]

The ability to pump skill checks to absurd levels and thereby produce game-breaking results should at least be mentioned. Fourteen different flavors of bonuses to your Diplomacy check to turn the dragon flying in to incinerate you into your BFF, the silly Seduction rules that can force your enemy to disarm and remove armor, the Jumplomancer.... the list goes on.